The area where the new factory is located is the old US Army Cornhusker Ammunition and Ordnance plant site. There were three load lines (rail)going non stop in WWII I believe. There was a big (huge) explosion in the area back then as well. It comes with the territory. was told workers in the primer area had to stand in water. Not sure if thats true.
Explosion at Hornady
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You can still see some of the old bunkers all out through there. The really old train tracks are still visible in a few places too. Pretty interesting really. The airport was also a b-29 training center. (As I understand) Monument set up in the veterans park. Apologize if it’s off topic. The area is very rich in that type of history. I believe you’re correct about the water.
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So how many of these ammo plants were there? I was aware of the one in WI, the one near Texarkana, and of course Lake City. Any others?
Occurs to me the Fed government has the same problem as all the rest. If they have put all their eggs in the Lake City basket, what are they going to do if they have an accident?
Occurs to me the Fed government has the same problem as all the rest. If they have put all their eggs in the Lake City basket, what are they going to do if they have an accident?
Double Naught Spy
Sus Venator
They will contract will other ammo manufacturers. What does the military do when they need planes to move troops? They use civilian aircraft. That is by law, but the point is that while their current eggs are in one basket, the county has several baskets in reserve that can be utilized. The thing is, though, they don't have all their eggs in one basket.
Plus, look at the places that do it. For example...
Artillery by others...
US Army eyes sixfold production boost of 155mm shells used in Ukraine
The U.S. Army unveils a new goal for ramping up 155mm ammunition to replenish and grow its stockpiles as the rounds are sent to Ukraine en masse.
www.defensenews.com
bluetopper
Member
Every video I've ever seen of primer manufacturing, the workers were standing in about 2 inches of water.
WestKentucky
Member
Those safety violations are all pretty much standard stuff.
Mislabeled/no-label container caught fire. Labels wear off.
Employee leaned into activation switch. Guarantee there was a clear procedure not to do what they did.
Employee opened a guard and reached in without LOTO. Grounds for termination on the spot and unemployment benefit would be denied in most states.
The forklift wreck gave me goosebumps. The way that most of those types of trucks are built are a death trap. No really good way to protect a driver when the whole goal of the design is to make it as open as possible so that the driver can be in and out in a couple seconds. I had an employee fracture an arm in an overhead collision where he got thrown out of the vehicle into a welded C channel fence. A sister plant had an employee who rammed a flatbed semi with the forklift in reverse. It nearly cut him in half because there’s no guarding on the rear of those machines to make them open for easy on/off like for order picker jobs in a warehouse.
Now there’s an explosion. Clearly there’s a problem, but an unsafe history is not the case. All unrelated items and all are common in general industry. The LOTO incident summary verbiage reads like it was immediately self reported as is required for hospitalization, amputation, and a select few other incidents.
Anybody got any guesses as to why I got out of safety management? From the safety managers stance, it’s a bomb just waiting to go off. Get however many people in one location focused on something other than staying alive and in one piece. My biggest factory was 1600 employees with yours truly as the entire safety department, which in truth was more geared towards being the workers comp wing of HR. Some of those people gathered at work are going to be young and dumb… we all are at some point. Some of them actually want to hurt or kill themself so that they or their family get rich off of their intentional accident. Just imagine this… you’re the RSO at a gun range. If you screw up at all then you go to jail and somebody else gets hurt or killed. Your shooting range is on the corner and is bordered by a bar, a depression clinic, a drug dealers place of business, a convenience store that only sells fried chicken and energy drinks, and an ambulance chaser attorney. Realistically the best part of your day is the fried chicken in between silly mishaps, and on a bad day somebody gets a case of Glock-leg. On a really bad day the coroner shows up with the osha enforcement guy and the local sheriff with a warrant, and detectives trying to pin gross negligence on everybody.
Now, I’m pretty one-sided on this because of my past, but I’ll be very clear that these incidents should not ever happen. I have been in the trenches and know that what hits the final report is never the whole and complete truth. Simply put industry in general needs to learn from mistakes rather than being bulldogged into following a set of rules from 1980 written by a guy with good intentions and then translated into politician speak and that further translated into administrative law, with little concern for improvement in technology. Hornady has some stuff to fix. I bet it would be easier to fire the 3rd shift clown, the 2nd shift hemmoroid, and hire 2 extra engineers and 4 extra maintenance guys, along with a pair of top notch controls technicians than it is to pay fines, rebuild factories, and settle lawsuits. They have won the hand they played, but the prize is even worse than the blind draw from let’s make a deal. Industry has to actually idiot proof things, and the school systems along with modern tv parenting needs to do a better job of producing people who aren’t idiots. It’s on all of us, always will be when these messes happen. Employer should have built better. Worker should have done better. Parent should have taught better.
Every.
Stinkin.
Time.
Rant over, you may now proceed with normal programming.
Mislabeled/no-label container caught fire. Labels wear off.
Employee leaned into activation switch. Guarantee there was a clear procedure not to do what they did.
Employee opened a guard and reached in without LOTO. Grounds for termination on the spot and unemployment benefit would be denied in most states.
The forklift wreck gave me goosebumps. The way that most of those types of trucks are built are a death trap. No really good way to protect a driver when the whole goal of the design is to make it as open as possible so that the driver can be in and out in a couple seconds. I had an employee fracture an arm in an overhead collision where he got thrown out of the vehicle into a welded C channel fence. A sister plant had an employee who rammed a flatbed semi with the forklift in reverse. It nearly cut him in half because there’s no guarding on the rear of those machines to make them open for easy on/off like for order picker jobs in a warehouse.
Now there’s an explosion. Clearly there’s a problem, but an unsafe history is not the case. All unrelated items and all are common in general industry. The LOTO incident summary verbiage reads like it was immediately self reported as is required for hospitalization, amputation, and a select few other incidents.
Anybody got any guesses as to why I got out of safety management? From the safety managers stance, it’s a bomb just waiting to go off. Get however many people in one location focused on something other than staying alive and in one piece. My biggest factory was 1600 employees with yours truly as the entire safety department, which in truth was more geared towards being the workers comp wing of HR. Some of those people gathered at work are going to be young and dumb… we all are at some point. Some of them actually want to hurt or kill themself so that they or their family get rich off of their intentional accident. Just imagine this… you’re the RSO at a gun range. If you screw up at all then you go to jail and somebody else gets hurt or killed. Your shooting range is on the corner and is bordered by a bar, a depression clinic, a drug dealers place of business, a convenience store that only sells fried chicken and energy drinks, and an ambulance chaser attorney. Realistically the best part of your day is the fried chicken in between silly mishaps, and on a bad day somebody gets a case of Glock-leg. On a really bad day the coroner shows up with the osha enforcement guy and the local sheriff with a warrant, and detectives trying to pin gross negligence on everybody.
Now, I’m pretty one-sided on this because of my past, but I’ll be very clear that these incidents should not ever happen. I have been in the trenches and know that what hits the final report is never the whole and complete truth. Simply put industry in general needs to learn from mistakes rather than being bulldogged into following a set of rules from 1980 written by a guy with good intentions and then translated into politician speak and that further translated into administrative law, with little concern for improvement in technology. Hornady has some stuff to fix. I bet it would be easier to fire the 3rd shift clown, the 2nd shift hemmoroid, and hire 2 extra engineers and 4 extra maintenance guys, along with a pair of top notch controls technicians than it is to pay fines, rebuild factories, and settle lawsuits. They have won the hand they played, but the prize is even worse than the blind draw from let’s make a deal. Industry has to actually idiot proof things, and the school systems along with modern tv parenting needs to do a better job of producing people who aren’t idiots. It’s on all of us, always will be when these messes happen. Employer should have built better. Worker should have done better. Parent should have taught better.
Every.
Stinkin.
Time.
Rant over, you may now proceed with normal programming.
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